October 16, 2006

Weekend Herb Blogging # 54 Roundup

Well, here it is: My very first Roundup of any kind. It was quite a bit of fun, but of course I had a technical problem. I ALWAYS have technical problems when I do anything. You'll notice that the spacing is a tad inconsistant in this post. Try as I may, I couldn't get it to do what I wanted. But, you'll learn more about that later.

For this week we had 22 submissions from around the world. (I hope I didn't leave anyone out.) As always, the recipes were wonderful and show again that Weekend Herb Bloggers are quite a talented lot.

Next weekend hosting duties will be handled by Patl at Up A Creek Without A Patl. Send the e-mail to pat DOT langille AT gmail DOT com.

That said, let's look at them.

Paula Deen's Sweet Potato Biscuits with Rosemary

Missouri, USA

Glenna, at A Fridge Full Of Food And Nothing To Eat forgets to put baking powder in her rosemary flavored biscuits, but they still manage to look great. Isn't it nice when that happens? Besides adding flavor, the moist sweet potatoes replaced most of the fat in the biscuits.

Braised Cauliflower With Curry & Yogurt

Missouri, USA

Alanna Kellogg of A Veggie Venture, fresh from organizing a fabulous seminar for bloggers, has done it again with Braised Cauliflower with Curry & Yogurt. This delicious heart healthy dish also features Weekend Herb Blogging's Favorite herb, cilantro.

Orange & Poppy Seed Cake

Sydney, Australia

Anna from Morsels & Musings writes an informative post that settles any questions about the long standing belief that poppy seeds affect drug tests results. She also prepared a marvelous cake made from these colorful and delicious seeds. Just don't eat it before you have a drug test!

Eggplant and Potatoes With Basil And Sesame Seeds

Pistoia, Tuscany, Italy

Ilva at Lucullian Delights once again features gorgeous photos of eggplant, transforming them into works of art. Her delightful recipe of eggplant and potatoes features basil, which was the runner-up in the WHB favorite herb contest.

Tomato & Cilantro SoupUtah, USA

Our fearless leader, the indefatigable Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen has just returned from the seminar in St Louis and is full of stories and pictures. But, she did have time to prepare a beautiful Tomato & Cilantro Soup. Of course, we all know about the romance Kalyn has with cilantro! It's one for the ages.

Fall Garden Revue

Central Pennsylvania, USA

Visit Kenny at Veggie Gardening Tips and you'll see the vegetables and herbs of your dreams. In particular, I noticed one of my favorite ornamental herbs, Mexican sage. I'm certainly inspired to go work in my garden soon.Roasted Tilapia, Tomato Wings & Asparagus

Toronto, Canada

Ruth at Once Upon A Feast--Every Kitchen Tells A Story offers us a delicious meal full of herbs. Ruth's family always eats well, and here they feasted on Roasted Tilapia dusted with coriander, cumin and fresh oregano. That was paired with Tomato Wings, coated with lots of basil and parsley.

Chicken Salad With Rosemary

Virginia, USA

A deliciously different take on chicken salad can be found over at Coffee & Cornbread. Coffeepot uses many of the traditional ingredients and then adds rosemary to the mix. Since I love chicken salad and rosemary, I intend to make this

Salmoriglio

Melbourne, Australia

I have oregano growing in my garden and thanks to Haalo at Cook (almost) Everything At Least Once, I now have a wonderful recipe for it. She shows how Salmoriglio can be easily prepared to give a fabulous taste to meat and fish. I also learned that oregano is a member of the mint family, which makes perfect sense if you notice the similar appearance and tenacious growing habit of mint and oregano.

Walnut Decorated Mini Coffee Cakes

Kronshagen, Germany

Ulrike at Küchenlatein has the perfect recipe if you're in the need for something divinely sweet. Her Walnut Decorated Mini Coffee Cakes will satisfy your need. And she was lucky enough to have freshly picked walnuts, a taste treat to be sure.

Pinakbet Tagalog

North Carolina, USA

JMom at In Our Kitchen shares her recipe for Pinakbet Tagalog, a vegetable stew with pork. This charmingly named dish melds together a rich mix of veggies including eggplant and okra with ginger and garlic. I always look for new eggplant recipes, so this is a keeper for me.

Muscadine Grapes

North Carolina, USA

At What's Cooking In Carolina, Swank Catering features a food near and dear to my heart, Muscadine grapes. My grandparents had these delicous fruits growing on their land and they put other grapes to shame. I'm glad to see the word being spread about Muscadines

Slow Cooked Pork, With Apple Reduction

Iowa, USA

The Inadvertent Gardener features a recipe with succulent pork and apples, flavored with sage and garlic. You'll swear you can smell the wonderful aroma of this dish as you gaze at the pictures. And it's easily made in a slow cooker!

Potato Salad Alaturka (Patates Salatası)

Bloomington, USA

Almost Turkish Recipes features parsley in one of the prettiest potato salads I've ever seen. It also contains lots of dill and mint, so it's sure to be full of good flavors. Serve this and say goodbye to bland looking potato salad!

Sweet Potato Boats With A Pesto of Rose and Pecan Nuts

Nantes, France

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Virginie at Absolutely Green prepares delicious and healthy vegan recipes. Here she stuffs sweet potatoes with pecans, dried apricots, and rose petals. One can only imagine how lovely that smells!

Drying Herbs For The Winter

California, USA

Strata Chalup at My Bay Area Garden is back with arm loads of herbs and helpful information on harvesting, pruning and drying them. I'm amazed at the amount of herbs that Strata grows and harvests. Her yard must smell like heaven.

Purple Kohlrabi

Missouri, USA

Over at In My Kitchen Garden the hard working Farmgirl discovers that purple kohlrabi is darn near impossible to kill! Neither frost, weeds nor Cary can discourage this admirable and beautiful plant.

Rye Ravioli with Sage Roasted Pumpkin in Sage Butter Sauce

California, USA

Surfindave at Serendipitous Chef roasts some pumpkin, couples it with rye flour pasta dough, sage butter sauce, and invents rye ravioli!. Since we adore rye bread in our house, I think this is pure genius!

Fried Green Tomatoes

Connecticut, USA

Brace yourself, fried green tomato fans. Cucina Bella has made a big plate of these, so enticing they will make you weep in frustration, particularly since tomato season is almost over.

Citrus And Basil Salad

Katerina at Daily Adventures In Cooking features a refreshing salad made with oranges and basil. I wish I had this while I was sick with my cold. But, I certainly don't need to be sick to enjoy it!

And here are my sandwiches from What Did You Eat? I highly recommend the tomato chutney, which is full of fresh ginger root, even if you don't make the sandwiches. It can transform many things into something special.

Now, there is one last entry--from the wonderful Gattina. No matter what I tried, Typepad would not allow me to properly include a picture of her dish along with the other entrants. When I did, her picture was displayed askew from the others. I'm pretty sure it's due to my limited abilities with a computer--but I prefer to blame Typepad. I finally decided to give up and give Gattina her own special spot. Scroll down and you will see Gattina's picture in all it's glory. So there, Typepad!

Mussels With Swiss Chard And Italian Parsley

New Jersey, USA

Gattina has done it again. Here she shows a delicious dish of parsley and swiss chard stuffed into mussels and cooked to perfection. I always feel that the food in Gattina's beautiful photos is right in front of me, ready to enjoy.

What a great job! (The guest hosts are outdoing me by a long way, which I think is great!) I so know about those technical problems. For some reason I couldn't get Blogger to let me leave a comment on Katerina's post.

Sher,
I longing for trying a few new ingredients, so lucky I see them in this recap! Great job Sher, and with your beautiful layout the "seat" for everyone is just perfect! So please don't worry about mine huh (I got your e-mail)... hope Upsie's dinner didn't get delay after all these technical problem :P

my ginger root plantings should be ready in a few weeks to begin harvesting. i'll post a photo when i do. i read your "grilled cheese" recipe with great interest -- and the chutney uses ginger root!

not only are all the entries beautiful but everyone's blogs -- all new to me, i've wandered in from cat blogging -- are too. i can't wait to send them to a dear friend who can spot fab recipes [isn't that the first step?] from miles away!

Argh! The slow loading computer. I've had that too. I'm terrbly impatient, so that was hard on me.

Mae,

Next time! You've been pretty busy--doing marvelous things.

Kalyn,

Oh, we aren't outdoing you! Never! Thank you for letting me host!

Alanna,

Thank you!

Burcu,

And thank you too.

Ruth,

I would have been far too surprised if I hadn't been bedeviled by problems. :):) And thank you.

JMom,

Thank you--I was glad to do it.

Whaleshaman,

Oh, Upsie hates kisses. In fact, I pretend like I'm going to kiss her and she pushes me away with her paws. I've only had one cat that ever liked kisses. Upsie says that humans have germy mouths--they may have been kissing dogs. :):)

Ah, I envy you the ginger root harvesting. I'm going to get myself a plant too.